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Paramedics considering action after pay offer

Kate Hagan

The state secretary of the Ambulance Employees Association, Steve McGhie. Photo: Angela Milne

PARAMEDICS are preparing for workplace bans including refusing to work above their pay grade following a government pay offer their union has described as offensive.

Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said experienced paramedics would have to trade off overtime and entitlements to receive annual pay rises of up to 5 per cent under the offer, which he expected the union's state council to reject on Wednesday.

Mr McGhie said the deal would leave experienced paramedics about $1 a week better off, which was effectively a pay cut due to inflation and would force many of them out of the service. ''Paramedics work non-stop, up to 15 or 16 hours straight, attending emergencies and using their training and professionalism to save lives,'' he said. ''Now Premier Baillieu expects paramedics to give up entitlements they and their families rely on. Paramedics love their jobs but they feel disgusted with this government. This pay offer is just offensive.''

Paramedics have been negotiating with Ambulance Victoria and the government since August over a new enterprise bargaining agreement, after demanding a pay rise of 30 per cent over three years.

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The agreement expired in November but paramedics maintain their current wages and entitlements until striking a new deal with their employer.

Paramedics are currently voting on whether to take industrial action including refusing to cover senior vacancies and speaking publicly about workplace conditions, in a ballot authorised by Fair Work Australia. Mr McGhie said the pay offer was ''a disaster for anyone who will ever need an ambulance in this state. Our ambulance service is already stretched dangerously thin and this will make matters worse. Every day we hear horror stories about shifts going unfilled across the state because there are not enough paramedics to do the job, and that's putting patients in danger.''

Ambulance Victoria spokesman Tony Walker said the service recruited 295 paramedics last financial year, including 273 new graduates.

He said the organisation was bound by government public-sector wage policy of 2.5 per cent a year with any further rises to be traded for productivity gains.

''We are not making our employees give up their leave, simply attempting to give them more options,'' he said.

Mr McGhie said he hoped to reach agreement on a new pay deal but paramedics were preparing for industrial action if negotiations failed to progress.

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